


No Place Feels like Home

by rosevest



Category: Cobra Starship, Midtown, The Academy Is...
Genre: Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Band Fic, M/M, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:08:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosevest/pseuds/rosevest
Summary: “Fuck, anywhere! Everywhere! I don’t care, Gabe. Just… Let’s go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere. Turn off the GPS, drive aimlessly until we find something we wanna see. I wanna do that with you.”--Two friends, a Volkswagen van, and seven days to figure out what home actually means.





	No Place Feels like Home

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been a journey, and not just because it's a road trip fic. I've wanted to write gabilliam for ages, I just didn't really know where to go with it. I wanted to write something personal, and something that you might be able to find relatable, as opposed to an au about a niche topic. I hope you all enjoy, I'll be updating every Friday.

“The world can’t wait anymore,” William whispered, resting his head against Gabe’s shoulder. His bottom lip slipped between his teeth, his head tilted up towards Gabe’s. “We’re getting old, Gabanti. We’re not gonna be in our twenties forever. I wanna see things, and not just from a tour bus. There’s so much we haven’t seen. I want to leave the world behind, and I wanna do it with my best friend. Can we go on a road trip? Please?” 

“You don’t drive,” Gabe replied, shifting his focus down to William’s face. “I want to, but we both have lives.”

“I have my learner’s,” William pouted, letting his body go limp to lay across Gabe’s lap. His legs were kind of bony, but it felt comfortable there. It felt safe. “One week. That’s all I need. Drive me anywhere in the country, I don’t care. I want to see the world. I’m bored of waiting to tour. I’m bored of sitting around the apartment. I wanna do something. I wanna see something. I need a change of scenery. As much as I love LA, I’m so bored of it. I want the world, and I don’t want to wait for it anymore. You’re only around when you’re recording, and I don’t like being without you. You’re my best friend, Gabe, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather do this with. One week. That’s all.” 

“What happened to ‘Come over, Gabe’ and ‘Let’s watch a movie, Gabe’?” Gabe shook his head, laughing breezily and letting his fingers brush through William’s long, soft locks. William stared up at him, tracing the outlines of Gabe’s facial features with his eyes. Gabe’s eyes were inviting, even if they looked a little quizzical in that moment. 

The movie was droning on in the background, the words muddled together in William’s mind. He didn’t want to watch the movie. He wanted to leave, and realistically, never wanted to come back. But he could live with a week. This was probably another one of his whims, but he wanted to run away with Gabe. Or at least go on a road trip with him. 

“Life happened. Seriously, one week, that’s all I want. You can drive along the coast or across the country to the desert… I don’t really care. I wanna get out of here,” William stared up at him, eyes glossy and wide. 

“Bilvy, we have our whole lives to see the world. One day we’re gonna be old and rich and not touring anymore, we’ll have all the time in the world. Besides, I don’t wanna drive for that long. I’m lazy, you know that,” Gabe smiled down at him. Someone was shot on the TV screen behind them. William winced. He didn’t like violence. He forgot why they had picked an action movie. “We’re not that guy,” Gabe commented offhandedly, laughing a little. William raised an eyebrow at him. He felt something in his back crack against Gabe’s leg. They were already getting old.

“But what if we are? When we’re old, we might not be friends anymore. One of us might be dead. Life is short, Gabe. It’s really short. I wanna live it to the fullest, and I don’t want to do it alone. I’d rather drive without a destination than sit around and wait for my next hit song to just magically come to me. C’mon. The world is ours to see. We don’t have forever,” William explained, his mind wandering off to the thought of how much brighter the stars would look outside of the city. He’d never seen the stars outside of a city. He wanted to, though, more than anything. 

“I’ll think about it, okay? Maybe. I’ll see if I can stay back for a couple of days after recording is over. But if I don’t get drunk in the middle of a desert at least one night of this? Consider our friendship over,” Gabe laughed. William thought it would be fun, maybe, sitting in the sand and staring up at the stars, head dizzy and eyes wrinkled at the sides from smiling too hard. 

Sirens screeched on the TV. William pictured it in his head: Gabe getting pulled over for driving too far above the speed limit, the two of them laughing and explaining to a police officer that they didn’t realize how fast the car was going, they were too busy singing along to the Fall Out Boy song on the radio to pay attention to the speedometer. They’d get a ticket, and Gabe would make William pay him back for it, because it was William’s dumb idea in the first place. The two of them would joke about it for years to come. 

“Are you even watching this?” Gabe asked, one eyebrow quirked. William snapped back into reality, guided by the sound of Gabe’s voice. William shook his head, the corners of his lips turning upwards. “I dunno why you always pick movies you don’t even want to watch. You’re so weird like that.”

William shrugged his shoulders, eyes fixated on a strand of hair that was falling into Gabe’s eye. He reached up and brushed it out of Gabe’s line of vision, his fingers brushing lightly against the skin on Gabe’s forehead.

“Asking you to come watch movies is just an excuse to spend time with you, you know that,” William smiled up at him.

“You could just come party with me,” Gabe replied. As much as William liked partying, it wasn’t as intimate with this. He couldn’t lay across Gabe’s lap, or ask Gabe to leave the world behind with him over top of the loud music in a club or through slurred speech. He didn’t want to, at least. This felt safe; he didn’t have to be around people he didn’t know, or wait for his drink to slip out of his fingers because his hands were shaking. Here, his hands didn’t shake, but rather, tried to find a proper position on his barely existent stomach. “Why don’t we just put on something you want to watch?”

“This is fine,” William replied, staring up at the ceiling. He wished it was a starry night sky and not a peeling ceiling in a stuffy apartment. He wanted to escape, and he wanted to do it with Gabe.

“I don’t get you sometimes,” Gabe shook his head. William just smiled at him. He was happier like this.

“Drive with me to the end of the world, Gabe,” William half-asked, half-commanded. He wasn’t even sure what he had meant by it, but at the same time, knew that it was exactly what he wanted.

“What?” Gabe laughed.

“I don’t know. I just want to leave and preferably never come back. I wanna see the stars Gabe, I’ve been in cities and suburbs my whole life, I’ve never really seen them. I want something else. I wanna look at the ocean, without having to go into it. I wanna see the desert, but not just Vegas and the Canyon, I just wanna see it. I want the world, Gabe. Because I haven’t seen it. I don’t know if you have, but I haven’t, and I really, really want to.”

“Where do you wanna go?”

“Fuck, anywhere! Everywhere! I don’t care, Gabe. Just… Let’s go. Somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere. Turn off the GPS, drive aimlessly until we find something we wanna see. I wanna do that with you.”

“I never thought you’d be such a free spirit. You’re normally such a hermit.”

“Shut up,” William laughed, shoving at Gabe’s shoulder. “I wanna get out of here.”

“I’ll try.”

“Promise?” William stared up at him with wide eyes.

“Bill, I swear that I’ll drive with you to the end of the world if it is in any way humanly possible.”

“Good,” William smiled up at him, eyes wide. He couldn’t think of a better person to leave the world behind with.


End file.
